Insecure Writer's Support Group: Only you can know

Hi! It's time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group, created by Alex Cavanaugh. Seems to be the only blog post I can be reliably certain of writing. Well, that's ok. If you're an insecure writer, like me, and you're dying to find a group that will boost your spirits, this is your lucky day! Hop on over to Alex's blog and sign up, then start posting! We're happy to include you.

Feedback. Reassurance. That's what this group is all about.

Positive feedback is awesome. So is the reassurance that you're good at this... that someone wants to hear your story. That someone else cares the way you do about your characters.

But a lot of times you don't get that kind of encouragement until you're near the end of the project. So what do you do while you're in the middle? In the throes of stress and anxiety, wondering whether you're just a hack who can't even cobble together a basic paragraph...?

Me, I do a lot of avoiding, of hiding from my work and finding anything else to do to make me feel successful, confident, better about myself. On the one hand, that works, because I don't have to feel those horrible crushing feelings that the fear of failure causes in me. But on the other hand... there's still this novel sitting there... waiting to be written. Waiting for me to return to it.

At some point you have to make a decision. You can do this. It's your story. You have to tell it. Is it worth it in the end to go through the pain of self-doubt, to struggle with the fear of inadequacy? Only you can know. Only you can say. Your characters, your story... it's yours. And even if you find that the feedback is less than positive and the reassurance is thin at best, you're the only one who can tell it.

Internship... you get out of it what you put in **UPDATED**

**Updated at the end.**

Quick post before I have to head in to the City this morning. I have been MIA the past week or so because I started this internship 3 days a week in the City with a literary agency. I would love to report that all is going well and I'm having the time of my life. Truth is, it's a mixed bag.

The thing I keep reminding myself is, I'm not getting paid. I'm volunteering time to learn about an area of the book business. I don't NEED a job. I WANT the experience.

And I am getting experience. I have read over a hundred submissions in the past 2 3 weeks, I would venture, the majority unsolicited. I could tell you right up front what will get through and what won't. Of what gets through, I couldn't tell you what will get picked up, though. This agent is finicky. She says she doesn't want to pass up on a really good manuscript. It's possible that we just have different ideas of what is good. 

However, that's an area for me to learn in, too. What do I know about what sells? I guess in the YA market, I have a bit of an eye. I've read a LOT of YA... but then, not as much as some of YOU. Still, I know what people are reading right now. In other markets not so much.

Sigh... on the other hand... I have had my patience tested over the past 2 3 weeks in ways I did not realize I might. I'm sitting on a hard chair at a kitchen table in a tiny Manhattan apartment, walking someone else's dog, commuting 3 hours a day... all to deal with a personality that I find less than appealing... trying to squeeze information about the business out of her... because it's more than choosing a good manuscript. Of that I am sure.

I guess I'm telling you all this, not to excuse myself for having been absent from the blogging world, so much as to say it's not all a bed of roses on the other side of the pen and paper... and I'm beginning to understand that actually means.

I hope to make it around and read some blogs this weekend. So write some good posts for me!

**I have to retract a statement. I really DO appreciate her personality... when she's not wearing her boss hat... and when she IS... I just have trouble dealing with her work style.

Today I found got better as I went... I'm sure in part due to the encouraging vibes you all are sending my way :)**

First drafts

I wanted to talk about first drafts today... because that's where I am... in my novel and in my life, I think. I wrote my second novel (gee that sounds weird) during NaNoWriMo last November. It's a great idea, for sure, and I think that at times I can be a great writer... but man this draft! I've been trying to get up the courage to edit/re-write the pile of jumbled up copy I produced in November... ever since I finished it, actually. I think I've finally gotten into a groove (this past Friday, actually) where I'm not afraid to look at it... but it's a MESS!

Anyone else feel this way?

So what I keep hearing from other writer friends is that first drafts are always a mess. That should make me feel better... really... it should.

Anyone else feel this way?

Author Annie Prouxl (Brokeback Mountain) says of drafts that "for a story like “Tits-Up in a Ditch” it was probably fifteen or sixteen drafts, with some paragraphs going through sixty drafts before they got right. Even then, when the story is apparently finished I see changes that must be made." Huh. Sixty drafts on some paragraphs. Boy wouldn't I like to see what the first draft looked like.

Anyone else?

I guess what it comes down to is that I am a closet perfectionist. So I'm utterly embarrassed every time I look at the mess that is my first draft, and HORRIFIED at the thought of showing it to someone else. I am worse than ashamed to think that my writing could start out looking as bad as I think that it does... and so then I lose the willpower to follow through and finish it.

Anybody... Bueller...?

I have been working on that feeling that everything I produce should be perfect right out of the box. Because.... damn it, it was a good idea! It still is a good idea! And yes, it needs work... and no, I'm not a prodigy... but that doesn't mean I can't get there given a little elbow grease. And it can be fun! And my self-worth is NOT based on first drafts. And Yours isn't either! Whew. There... I feel better now...

Anyone else?

"Comfort"

I have been listening to this song a lot in the past couple of weeks... it seems to me to be an audible expression of the feelings that have been swirling around in my heart since I found out that my cousin has a brain tumor.

It's one of those moments in my life when I wish that I had been raised differently, to have a closer relationship with my extended family instead of feeling alienated from all of them. I have been, in my own way, reaching out to them more recently... and to this "little one" especially...

It's not that I feel sorry for myself, but I do feel sad for sweet Katie... it's a lot of scary information to have to process, to learn to live with... not to mention the emotions... I just keep singing this line from the song to myself... hoping it will reach her from here: "And if you can't remember a better time, you can have mine, little one/In days to come when your heart feels undone, may you always find an open hand/Take comfort wherever you can..."

Ode to Havi, and the freedom to be...

So so thankful to have stumbled 
Upon the blog of one Havi Brooks.
Mostly I just lurk in the shadows... 
soaking up the creative encouragement 
that oozes out of every word,
reveling in the deliciousness of her working vocabulary 
(words like destuckification, biggification, gwish...), 
rejoicing in the Aha! moments her blog inevitably leads me to.

Ok, so maybe not a perfect ode... I'm out of practice. But I wanted to tell you all, anyone who reads what I write here, about how great this blog is for finding the encouragement to power through a project, the courage to face your monsters, and the comfort of knowing that you're not the only person who has ever hit the wall you're currently trying to recover from slamming into. Seriously... I have been marking the days in "ducks"... her little sidekick is a rubber duck, who is the icon on the tab next to the title of the current post... and the number of ducks on my tabs = the amount of encouragement I may or may not need from those posts!

"What brought on this sudden gush?" you ask. Well, like I said, I've been lurking on and off around her site for months... and then yesterday, I read the post "Avoidance! Oh, and getting out of it." And I cried... because here she was, telling me that the guilt, pain, and pressure I've been living under (my own little heavy rock)... the one that says that because I can and will do anything I can to avoid writing must mean I am not supposed to do it... that it's normal! What?!!

"There is a perfectly good reason to avoid the thing that means everything to you — whether it is your art, your writing, your secret mission, your own heart, or whatever.


In fact, avoidance of the thing which has meaning and power for you is the most understandable and normal thing I can think of.


Here is this thing — ohmygod the thing! — that has incalculable symbolic weight for you.


You’re avoiding the thing that’s holding all your dreams? Good grief! Of course you are! That symbolic weight? It’s that much potential for hurt and disappointment."

Wow... and here I'd been telling myself I must not care about it at all... and pulverizing myself into dust for not being more committed, more passionate, more motivated... to which she says:


"If you weren’t avoiding it on some level, I’d be worried about you. If you could do the thing easily and painlessly, without having to spend years and years working on your stuff to get there… I’d probably assume that it didn’t mean everything to you.


It’s not this: “Even though I thought this meant everything to me, I’m still avoiding it so clearly I don’t really care about it.”


It’s this: “Wow, this means everything to me… so of course I’m avoiding it.”


Where things get complicated and tangled.


Where it hurts.


Where it gets tangled up is exactly here. The stuck happens inside of the resistance that you place around the question.


Instead of recognizing your pain, you start to question yourself and your commitment.


Instead of treating your avoidance as a natural sign that this thing is so powerful and so important for you that of course you’re going to run away from it, you give this avoidance the power of truth.


You start to think that if you cared about your dream you’d invest in it, when the truth is that when we really care about our dreams we run away from them in panic and terror.


Until we recognize just how legitimate our fear really is.


Because avoidance is fear’s favorite thing to wear."


This is the point at which I started to cry... because she must be talking directly to ME!!! And yep... it hurts and it's more than a little bit scary... the process of recognition, of facing and defeating your (my) fears.

So here's the thing... my whole life I've been worrying that I need to do things right, better... and that for the most part I've been doing things wrong, otherwise my life would look differently than it does (i.e. I'd be successful... never be depressed... etc...) ... and I've been paralyzed by the inability to allow myself to break things or make messes... because one wrong move could mean disaster (i.e. everyone will see that I've made a mistake).

With writing, this is terrible because... the whole point of the process is that your first drafts (yes, there will be multiple) are not supposed to be perfect, but that every successive draft will get better! Except that I haven't been able to get past the first draft... because it's not already perfect... and because I've been so afraid that I'll fail miserably at being a writer of fiction... afraid that I may already HAVE failed at it... I have been fleeing this project... in earnest for the past year, but really since its conception way back when I was in high school.

And all this time... I've been saying that I must not really care... when in fact it's been one of the deepest desires of my heart. How did she KNOW?

Havi doesn't always have all the answers... let's be honest, if she did we'd all need to camp outside her house and accost her for words of wisdom every time she left to take a walk... and I don't think she'd like that AT ALL... but Havi's blog DOES have a wonderful box of creative tools for working OUT the answers for yourself (myself)... including:

"Some of the “useful questions” that I’ve been working with:


What if I’m allowed to be scared of the things that are meaningful and important to me?
What if there’s an easier way of doing things?
What do I need?
What will help me feel safe and supported?"


Thanks to Havi, now I've recognized that avoidance for what it really IS! And it's not magically better, but at least I make more sense to myself now... and can stop with the pulverizing... until the next time I need to be reminded that avoidance is normal... For now it's enough to remind myself that the things I thought I cared about really are the things I care about! I can stop doubting myself and get down to the business of being me... and facing and defeating my fears. (oh, and writing that novel :))

Baby steps

So progress is progress, right? After a couple of months of shirking, I have finally written a few more pages and I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel... meaning I have figured out how I want it to end, this WIP (that's Work In Progress for those of you who don't know) I have had hanging over my head for ... well... years, really. It's a mess and whole sections of it will have to be rewritten... but after a brief conversation with Noah last night, I believe I have found my resolution! And that's what counts right now... just getting it written... and then I can spend the NEXT 20 years editing it :)... Actually, it's probably only 15 years... and if you count how many years I spent NOT working on it... it's not really that long at ALL, right? Sigh...

Now if I can just get through the last pages of the beast...

Summer continues to forge ahead in the heat of its glory. And we have red sunflowers now...

and cucumbers and tomatoes...

 And more wildflowers...

And I'm slowly molding my insecurity into something more manageable, or learning to see it for what it really is... baby steps...

"Post about your riding"

Hmmm... there's a novel thought. Post about riding horses... something I do weekly at least twice... Perhaps I should post about my RIDING... :)

Truth is, riding has been hard for me the past few months. Last April, Debbie switched barns from the Woodland Stallion Station to Willow Creek Horse park. Since she's my riding instructor and I love her dearly, and since she is ridiculously generous with saddle time for me and knows everything, I went with her. Transitions are never easy, no matter how you look at it... and honestly, this one has been pretty rocky.

I like WC a lot. It's a fancy barn, well maintained, great LARGE (and by large I mean GIGANTIC) arenas, warm water in the wash rack. It's perhaps not as homey as WSS. And no where near as beautifully situated. WSS is a gem of a boarding facility with the vineyards and the eucalyptus grove and the pastures. I definitely miss the scenery. And I miss the worn feeling that everything had. No, it didn't always mean that I could open the gate to the indoor arena, or that I wouldn't find spiderwebs covering the tack room and in every crevice... but WSS is a place unto itself... and has its charm.

I think the hardest part about leaving WSS, though, was leaving Omega, the lovely old gentleman Morgan gelding. No, he's not the brightest star of a horse... he's a brilliant horse for a beginner, though, and that's when my relationship with him began. I was a beginner, fresh off of two quarters of weekly lessons at UC Davis, and he treated me well... well... better than Trevor the crafty ancient appaloosa did, anyhow (another story for another time).

When I moved over to WC, I began riding Watson, a relatively as old as Omega, good-natured, tall, Hanoverian gelding. He's a step up as far as talent goes... he can jump cross rails and so I started learning how to jump cross rails too. Stepping up in riding means that you have to get back to the basics sometimes... that you have to relearn some things that your last horse made easy for you... and that you have to learn new things that maybe you weren't expecting.

When I first began riding Watson in May, I cried every time I went to the barn. I felt like he was too big for me, like I couldn't control him at all, and like I had regressed in my skill level so much that there was no hope for me. (Did I mention that transition is never easy?)

Debbie is fantastic and... could be a shrink (maybe she was in another life?). She's coached, coaxed, and counseled me through the down days and given me back some of my confidence. You can't ask for a better instructor, or friend.

So what is wrong? I'm not sure yet... but I need to figure myself out. Because it's the worst feeling in the world having a mini panic attack before a lesson, not being able to sleep at night, bursting into tears in the middle of my ride. Maybe I'm afraid, but I don't know what of... because everyone thinks I'm weird when I say what I think it is... I'm not afraid of falling off... although maybe I am because I haven't done it yet... I don't know. I know I'm afraid when Watson gets going and I can't make him steer accurately, much less stop. I'm afraid that we'll crash through a fence or into the wall or into someone else. I'm afraid that he'll injure himself, and that it will be my fault... that I will be responsible... through ignorance or incompetence. I am afraid.

And the power of positive thinking hasn't helped me yet. Maybe some day it will... all I know is right now when I read all those motivational tips from Jane Savoie or George Morris or anyone else, I feel cheated... like it can't be that easy. And when they tell me it is, I feel worse, not better. And it's horrible, because... all I ever wanted to do since I was a little girl was to ride horses every day... to be with them and be at peace...

But even though I've lost my peace, I can't give up riding. Not until I get it back...

Possessing the Secret of Joy

I read Possessing the Secret of Joy, by Alice Walker, this weekend. I couldn't put it down. I was supposed to be writing a comparison paper on Italian poetry from the Renaissance. Instead I was reading a fictional account of a woman's struggle to cope with the emotional impact of female genital mutilation (FGM) or as some cultures call it "female circumcision." (FYI: I find the latter description to be too clinical to describe the ritualistic process of desexing female children)

I was mesmerized, haunted, and completely drawn into the pain of the main character. Yes, the practice is foreign to a Western white woman, and for that matter horrifying... but what amazed me was Walker's artistic weaving in of social and psychological issues to the act of FGM that come back to issues present in society today that plague even one such as myself.

FGM has taken up residence in my consciousness most recently because of my Women's Studies class I'm taking at UC Davis. I have found myself compelled to know more, to understand more, and to advocate for women where possible. What I did not expect (but I should have) was to come up against my own darkness in the process.

The next few months and the paper I hope to write about this journey should be ... interesting to say the least... enlightening, I hope... one step at a time.

An ego is a fragile thing

So, I've been riding horses for a year... and god knows, I'm still a beginner. But nothing ever stings as much as an ego reminded.

Firstly, the horse I usually ride, Trevor, collapsed this week. No worries, everything is fine... apparently he was either narcoleptic or he was not in the mood to ride and so faked us all out by falling down on the ground and refusing to get up for 10 minutes or so. I panicked, of course, thinking I had killed him... or at least that he had died under my care. Neither prospect was something I was looking forward to having to reckon with. After laying on the ground for more than 10 minutes with his eyes rolled back in his head, my instructor waved a cookie in front of him, and he popped right back up.

Needless to say, I was shaken thoroughly.

Then today we went to volunteer at a facility that gives riding lessons to handicapped people. I was very excited about doing this, and happy to be of help. Each special rider has at least 3 people attending him: two along side and one leading the horse. Because I have been riding for a year, they had me lead a horse.

All went well until the end of the day... the rider was a little more advanced than earlier in the day, so we did some more advanced things, like trotting. I would trot with the horse and the instructor/leader of the facility and Noah trotted alongside to help the rider maintain his balance.

But something happened to spook the horse... and he bucked a little and knocked all 4 of us to the ground... yes the handicapped rider fell off the horse. Somehow I managed to hold on to the horse, and pop back up to make sure he didn't take off willy nilly around the arena (there were others riding at the same time). It took 2 of us to calm him down.

The rider appears to have been unhurt, but scared (thank god he's not hurt)... Noah got stepped on a little... and I'm sore from being yanked around by a 1000 pound guinea pig. I'm so frustrated that my horse was the one that had the incident, and have felt like the biggest loser all day. How could I let that happen?

I'm trying to tell myself it wasn't my fault and things just happen. But I feel terrible, incompetent, foolish... and I almost quit riding right there. How does one not blame one's self for something like that? It seems useless to blame the horse... and not comforting at all to say "things like that just happen."

Anyhow, I didn't quit riding... I'm going in the morning... and hoping my bruised ego doesn't take another beating, or if it does that the beating will kill it so I won't have to mind any more.

Lord, make me humble and steer me clear from danger...

Confession

I just looked up through the window in my study here in our new home. Dusk is falling slowly on our sleepy little town. The curtains are drawn back so that the little gray kitty and I can look out at the back yard, and hopefully the rose bushes out this window that came with the house will come to frame it in time, adding a romantic touch to our little patch of earth. The sliver of an autumn moon is rising. She's still out there.

It's comforting to know that she, Luna, is still rising.

Confession: I had my faith in humanity shaken this morning.

My whole life I have always believed that every human being has something redeeming in them. Today, I saw a result of the basest aspects of human nature, and I wonder now, if such a person, who could commit such an atrocity, can have any good in them.

I met a man who breeds horses. He is amazing, gentle, conscientious, soft-spoken... and his breeding program is excellent. His horses are calm and gentle as he is, well conformed, superb specimens of their kind.

Through searching for the best of the breed to add to his program, this man came upon an equine tragedy that has left a lasting wound on my heart, a horse so badly abused that he has literally lost his mind. This horse had been the epitome of what a horse should be, so the man bought him sight unseen. Only when the horse arrived at the property did they realize that it had been broken so badly it could never be repaired. This gorgeous animal had been destroyed by someone trying, through every inhumane technique imaginable, to win a prize.

My eyes fill with tears, even as I type, thinking about the kind of torture that can leave such a lasting mark on an animal. It has been nearly 20 years since that horse came to live with the man I met today. He cares for it and provides for all its needs and it still mutilates itself, thrashing and screaming at the gentlest of human contact because of the torture it went through.

I can't comprehend what could lead a human being to press the boundaries of its own humanity and torture one of God's creatures that way... it is inexcusable to me... unforgivable... and fury rises from my chest, burning in my throat and stinging my eyes.

It takes divine grace, more than I have in my own broken heart, to overcome that kind of evil. I can't reconcile it in my mind. I reach out to heaven to ask for justice, and find myself confronted with mercy, and the need to break my heart again to understand it... God help me understand your mercy.

The only hope I find is in the compassion of the man who has taken this animal in, who cares for it even though he knows any efforts to rehabilitate the horse would be in vain. One day maybe I will be able to walk that path, not seeking to be vindicated for injustices done to me or to other innocents, not even seeking a triumphant end to suffering (because one does not always exist), but quietly seeking to offer mercy to those who need it desperately.